


Diplomat's Son

by brittlelimbs



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Childhood Friends, Childhood Memories, Jealousy, M/M, Pining, Possessive Behavior, Underage Drinking, knightpilot fic exchange, like so much pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-08 14:53:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6859516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brittlelimbs/pseuds/brittlelimbs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How do you say<em> I loved this boy, once, please don’t make me touch him<em>, and not have it come out sounding terrible? You just can’t.</em></em></p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Poe Dameron grew up with Ben Solo. As a sophomore in college he's learning, now, how to take care of Kylo, a freshman and one of the biggest human train wrecks he's ever had the pleasure of meeting.</em>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Diplomat's Son

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sithpadawan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sithpadawan/gifts).



> Written for the knightpilot prompt: College AU; Kylo gets to college and basically immediately self-destructs, and Poe's the one who nominates himself to go pick Kylo up off the floor and get him functioning again, and Oh Dear, Poe has grown up hot since the last time Kylo saw him (when they were like ten years old) and Kylo immediately ends up with a giant crush on him. 
> 
> OP-- Sorry. I think I took your prompt and kind of ran in the other direction with it. There's a lot that I could see adding to this, because I love a lot of the dynamics surrounding this, but for this submission, it ended up being a looot more slow burn-y. Hope you enjoy, though!
> 
> Title taken from the Vampire Weekend song of the same name.

Poe knows Ben Solo tangentially. You know, that loose sort of way where you grew up on the same block together, waited at that same, frigid corner stop for the school bus all winter long, spent summers crouched down at the creek in the shade. Danced in each other’s shadows.

Poe had an oak tree in his backyard, and once, when he was twelve and Ben was eleven, Ben broke his arm falling out of it. He’d been struck speechless with pain, laying there with his arm cradled close to his chest. Breathing like a fish, Poe thought for a second, mouth gasping open and closed on nothing more than air. Then the tears had come and Poe knew, in that moment, that there was no worse possible sound in the entire state of Indiana--the entire world, maybe--than the hot, wet bark of Ben Solo’s sobs.

Ben’s soft, red sweatshirt. Blanched skin. Screen door and trembling and _Momma Ben got hurt real bad_ , wrung out of him as he tried to hold Ben in the most ginger way his skinny arms knew how. Not careful enough, of course, nothing could have been; Ben was hiccupping now, Poe pressing kisses to his forehead as he rocked on the Dameron’s linoleum kitchen floor while Shara called Leia.

 

_Shh, shh. It’ll be okay._

 

Poe hated that tree for a long time afterwards.

 

Poe knew him tangentially, the two of them just close enough that it felt awkward when, in the fall of their sophomore year, he told Ben _hey, man, I’m sorry your parents split_. They’d grown apart naturally, like two boughs on that old oak tree, him one way and Ben another. Years later, here they were: Poe, on the way to practice, Ben smoking under the bleachers with two people he didn’t know. There was an awkward pause, and Poe shuffled his cleats around in the dirt.

“Okay,” Ben finally said, smoke jetting from his nose. Like a dragon, Poe thought, instead of dwelling on the hurt. Ben’s hair was longer than he’d ever seen it, and he wondered, vaguely, what it would feel like to slot his hands into it, feel it spill between his knuckles.

“Ben—“

“It’s Kylo.”

He stood and stubbed out the cigarette under the toe of his Docs, looking around to the other two as he made to leave.

“Oh. Sorry,” Poe said, taking a step back. “Sorry.” To have heard a rumor was one thing, but to hear the truth, straight from the source, was dizzying. Kylo, now. Alright. A name that sounded austere, strange and slanted as a line in his own mouth. He watched the jerky way B—Kylo shrugged on his denim jacket as they left, but truthfully, standing alone in the middle of the path, all he could think about was Leia. What she thought of this new son, if she was okay with him. If she still would read science fiction out loud to help him sleep at night, like she did when they were little, to this new boy and his new name.

 

Leia’s voice, warm in the blue dark as he twined his hand with Ben’s under the covers:

_Ender nodded. It was a lie, of course, that it wouldn’t hurt a bit--_

 

Probably not.

 

Yeah, Poe knew him. Knows of him. So maybe that’s how they got here, in this weird half-sketched situation that feels two parts like a dream and one part like nostalgia, if you wanted to look at it that way.

The muscles of Kylo’s back coil up tightly as he vomits again, retching echoing obscenely into the scuddy porcelain. Poe keeps a solid hold on that long, dark, hair, bunching it up at the nape of his neck to keep it free of the Keystone and vodka and whatthefuckever that’s making it’s second appearance of the night into the bowels of the toilet. He’s got the other in a death grip around Kylo’s forearm, making sure he doesn’t fall and crack his head open.

“Hey, buddy, there ya go—“

Once the heaving subsides Kylo pants into the bowl for a minute, murmuring something unintelligible when Poe pulls him away, gently props him up against the stall’s cold, metal siding. He reaches up to get some toilet paper, makes a few hasty swipes at the bile on Ben’s lips, then chucks the wad into the pot.

Things are cramped; Kylo’s tall as fuck, and there’s far too much leg in this stall for any sane person, so their legs are all akimbo, under and over and through each other’s in a woven thatch of denim and sneakers. Poe finds Kylo’s knee in his lap, and he wraps a warm hand around it. He’s not sure why, but feels right.

Poe’s phone buzzes. Kylo doesn’t look in danger of throwing up again soon, so he pulls it out of his pocket with his free hand, unlocks it.

_R U ok??_

Rey.

She’s probably worried; tonight had been _crazy_. Not that he’d meant for it to be. Poe and a few other soccer guys had hit up a house party to have a few beers (read: the freshman Wexley wanted to hook up with was there) and Poe’d promised Rey he’d meet up with her and Finn afterward to play some Kart. He’d ended up in some basement, of course, the kind with a low ceiling and thumping bass and sweat running down the walls, nursing a shitty beer by the pong table. Normal Saturday night type shit.

Then there was a shout, and he’d looked over Pava’s shoulder, and oh, maybe not so normal: all at once, there was _Kylo_ , unmistakably, laughing up the stairs at someone’s joke as he stumbled down the shallow steps and clumsily deposited himself on the broke-backed loveseat in the corner.

Poe’s brain had stopped entirely for a moment, then rebooted. Oh, right. He’s a freshman here this year. He’d known that, saw it on Facebook somewhere or something, months and months ago. Had purposely thought nothing of it until, apparently, he’d forgotten entirely; Poe had to force himself to look away before he ogled him, tried to memorize the exact ways in which he’d changed, stayed the same (But for the record—he’s taller, thinner, too. So thin that Poe wants to shrug out of his jacket and wrap it over those broad shoulders to make sure he’s warm enough. He’s grown into those big ears that Poe so loved. He’s _stunning_ ).

The party, though lukewarm in its own right, was unabashedly ruined for Poe at that point. He couldn’t just stand there, leaned up against the sweaty concrete, listening to Pava drone on and on about the cute girl in her biochem lab, while also knowing that Kylo was in the same room. It just—no. So he apologetically excused himself, something half-true about Finn and Rey, something about a paper due tomorrow, then turned to leave—

“Oi! Dameron!”

From the couch. Not good. He turned anyways.

There she was: Phasma, women’s field hockey captain, literal giant, and white-blonde object of Poe’s unadulterated hero worship. Kylo was half-in her lap, and he appeared to be drunkenly tousling with the freshman on his other side, a lanky ginger kid whose name Poe had to wring his mind to remember. Hans, maybe. Hux? Hux.

“You know Kylo, right?” She was trying to wrestle the Solo cup from Kylo’s preoccupied hands.

“Me?

“Yes, you. Poe Dameron.”

He edged closer, wary.

“You and Kylo went to high school together? Know each other?”

She finally gets the cup, jerking it from his grasp with a satisfied grunt. Kylo whines.

“Yeah, we do.” _Did_. “What’s up?”

“Kylo needs bed.”

That was already readily apparent; Poe could see, now, how those dark eyes were glassed over, unfocused, tongue peeking between his teeth as in concentration he tried to stiffarm Hux’s cheek. He didn’t even seem to notice that Poe was there, or care.

“I…” Poe, for once, was at a loss for words. How do you say _I loved this boy, once, please don’t make me touch him_ , and not have it come out sounding terrible? You just can’t.

“I gotta go,” he tried instead.

Phasma paused, looking half ready to convince him otherwise, and then--

“You!” Hux slurred, looking to Kylo, wriggling further into his lap and promptly interrupting anything argument she might’s made. “You have the most fuss--frustrating face. Did you know that.” Hux’s eyes were crossing as they gazed at him, just a little. Kylo giggled, seeming to given up on speech entirely, his head lolling onto Hux’s shoulder. Poe’s hands twitched at his sides.

“Freshman.” Phasma rolled her eyes.

“This one,” she said, gripping a hand in Hux’s copper hair and pulling his mouth away away from Kylo’s neck, prompting a half-hearted yelp. “He needs bed, too.”

Poe watched as Hux tried to hook unsteady fingers into Kylo’s beltloops like he was hanging on for dear life, and wow. It was funny how things can change, just like that. Paradigm shift, jealousy-green and ugly as hell; Poe was about to be so, so stupid, but suddenly that didn’t seem so bad, after all. Hux butted his forehead against Kylo’s collarbone like a cat and Poe thought: there are worse things than helping out an old friend.

“So. You want me to… get Kylo home?”

Phasma stretched, stood, all of her six foot three inches of muscle rearing up into Poe’s personal space. He took a step back. She laughed.

“He lives in Watson.”

So, with much due process, Hux and Kylo were disentangled, separated, pulled up by their shirt-collars and placed onto dangerously unsteady feet.

“Here,” Phasma said, slotting Kylo into Poe’s arms. “Got him?”

“Yeah.” Poe had grunted into Kylo’s ridiculously warm, soft t-shirt. “Got ‘em.”

 

Somewhere far away, somewhere irrelevant and not Kylo, a kid —Mitaka? Maybe?—piped up from the table: “Phasma! Do the—thing!”

Phasma rolled her eyes again, but this time, the gesture had a honed, golden edge of pride. Poe clutched at Kylo, awestruck as she dipped down and, without fanfare, rolled Hux over her shoulders. A fireman’s carry. The sight was so stunningly impressive that, for a moment, Poe forget how much he _hated_ Hux and had gotten swept up in the cheers; even the table had stopped playing, cries of _Phas-ma!_ _Phas-ma!_ drowning out the Fetty Wap pumping in over somebody’s speakers. Hux struggled for a moment before flopping passively against her. Poe got the impression that this was not the first time she’d done this.

They left: Phasma, impressively, Poe less so. But still equally burdened, without a doubt; Poe might stack over Kylo when it comes to muscle, but the guy still has almost half a foot on him, and being drunk enough that every two steps of progress meant one step back did not help this. Not at all.

Kylo was heavy, blackout drunk, and smelled like weed. Poe was ecstatic: he was _real._

 

Kylo started throwing up just after they made it past the quad. Poe saw it coming on his face, in his half-mumbled assertions of “m’ gonna—“, and corralled him over to some conveniently placed shrubbery just in time.

When he was finished, Kylo curled up in the dirt next to his vomit. He was gonna sleep here, he slurred. He was gonna sleep with the worms.

Poe stood over him with a fist raised to his mouth, firmly tamping down the memories that were crawling up the back of his throat: summer-sweet shapes of lying in the dew, together, counting box beetles on a balmy, blissful morning. He wanted to remember how that tasted, how that felt. _No, Kylo,_ he said instead. _You need to go to bed._ Nevermind that it was Poe’s bed that they were headed for; it was much closer, anyway, and some tiny part of Poe would feel much better if he could keep an eye on Kylo through the night.

Needed to hang on tight to ghost before it dissolved, maybe, blew away like pollen on a July breeze, slipped through his grasping fingers.

 

Poe’s head tips against the stall wall with a hollow _thunk._

 _fine_ , he texts back. _getting his drunk ass in bed_

Kylo groans, prompting Poe to rub his knee again.

 _U missd kart_ comes the reply almost immediately, and Poe grimaces. He feels bad blowing his friends off like this, he really does; this was just an exception. An important one, with lanky limbs and greasy hair and too many memories looped around the fine bones of his wrists, tangled in between his fingers.

Kylo hiccups, head sagging heavily onto his shoulder. Poe traces the craggy line of his brow with nothing but his gaze, memorizing the topography of his nose and lips, studying the sweep of his lashes against his pale cheeks so intently that he feels guilty because Kylo isn’t lucid enough to tell him to stop. It’s just—It’s just. He’s always been curious as to, you know, how things would turn out.

His phone buzzes again.

_???_

_sorry,_ Poe shoots back, adding a few remorseful crying emojis for good measure. _brunch tomorrow?_

The reply comes instantly: _yeh fine waffles on u tho_

Poe smiles. He can live with that.

 

Though getting him in bed is difficult, Kylo sleeps quite soundly. Poe has him rolled over on his side, of course, shitty plastic garbage bin near his head just in case he needs to throw up again. Poe takes his place on the floor, a dirty sweatshirt balled up under his head as a pillow. Wex told him that he isn’t planning on coming back to the room tonight, but Poe wouldn’t feel comfortable sleeping in his bed, especially considering fact that it’s also probably narsty as fuck; one of Wex’s worst habits is eating in bed. And jacking off an unnecessary amount. The floor affords him a decent view of Kylo, anyways, half of his slack face visible above the edge of the mattress from Poe’s low vantage point.

Poe flips off the lights then curls up on the nubbly carpet, wondering what Kylo would think of his room if he were awake. If he would study the pictures Poe’s got tacked up on his pinboard, try to fill in some of the gaps. If he would point at his Guardians of the Galaxy poster and say: _that movie sucked ass_. Give Poe grief just for the sake of doing it, just to make Poe shake his head and smile and say _nah, man, you have no taste._

 

Poe’s eyes fly open. His heart is pounding. He doesn’t remember falling asleep. Everything is the dove-wash grey of early, early morning. The clock on his desk blares 5:08 AM.

“Poe?”

Kylo is a dark mass on his bed, staring at Poe through one slitted eye, and _oh_.

“Yeah?” His voice is hoarse, trying for coaxing but coming out something else, something decidedly desperate.

There’s a pause, and hope doggedly rises in Poe’s chest where it’s pressed against the carpet, though Kylo rewards him with nothing more than a dream-slick tangle of sleep-talk, woozy mumblings from a cotton tongue. He rolls over.

Poe falls asleep some time later, staring at Kylo’s shoulder, the only tiny mount of him visible above the bedline, thinking about how the naked thing he’d heard cracking in Kylo’s voice just for that second.

How much wants to hear his name in that mouth again.

 

Kylo looks an absolute mess the next morning when Poe wakes, this time for real, but when he checks the trashcan, it’s empty. Poe putters around on socked feet as quietly as possible even though it’s nearly eleven according to his clock. Fills one of his nalgenes with water from the bathroom down the hall, finds a bottle of Advil somewhere, too, and places them on his bedside where Kylo will see along with his phone and wallet.

Once everything is in place, shuffled into order, he stares at his hands for a while, because this is it.

This is, quite likely, the last time he’ll ever see Kylo. They’ll just keep growing their separate directions, he tells himself, heading out the door, taking the elevator, unlocking his bike. Damn, he was stupid in ever trying to help him in the first place, of just wanting to hold him for a minute, for trying to remember. Split at the trunk, they are, reaching towards skies of their own making. Poe will come back and Kylo will be gone and not broken up about this because _why should he be_ and they will continue.

Or Kylo will, at least. Wetness peeks at the corners of Poe’s eyes as he whips down the sidewalk, biking into the wind; maybe Kylo will, but he seems to have a bad habit of carrying heavy things around, right close to his chest, tucked under his heart.

 

The waffles don’t taste as good as usual.

They’re in the mom-and-pop joint that’s a few blocks away from Rey’s dorm. It’s the kind of place where everything is laminated and there are slick formica tables in the booths and there are cutesy names for its specials.

“Are you alright?” Rey asks. Her cheeks are bulging around a sweet, syrupy mouthful, and suddenly Poe realizes that one: both she and Finn are staring at him from across the booth, and two: he’s rubbing his neck. Again. He sheepishly lowers his hand, gives a mumbled _yeah_ , even though he’s far from okay; there’s a stiffness in his neck from sleeping on the floor, and every time Poe twists his head too far to the left, the twinge makes him think of-- him. How he’d looked in Poe’s bed, hangover-wrecked and haggard, achingly young and vulnerable. Broken record on the brain, again again again, a montage of profiles and slick shadow and the comparison between old frameworks with new ones just discovered. Poe’s fucked up with it.

“I slept on it wrong.”

“Okay, man,” Finn says, glancing at Rey out of the corner of his eye. “If you say so,” Rey shrugs.

Poe knows Rey can tell something’s up as they work their through the rest of their waffles, but she doesn’t comment on it. She chews with her mouth open instead, waxing poetic about how _absolutely fucking amazing_ the new physics prof is, and feeding Finn mouthfuls of whipped cream. Finn goes along with it. Poe tries to remember if he dreamed up Kylo saying his name while also, simultaneously, attempting to stay afloat in the conversation. By the time Poe pushes his plate away, most of his waffle untouched, even Finn is giving him funny looks, and Poe wants to slap himself; he never had a poker face worth a damn, anyways.

 

When Poe comes home both the water and Advil are gone. So is Kylo.

Exactly what he expected and no less than he deserves, but it still feels like shit. He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers; damn, he could use an Advil himself.

He’s starting to go through the motions of getting his shit together when, there, shlumped at the corner of the bedframe, is a jacket with sleeves that are much too long for Poe’s arms. Too love-worn, too—

He’s scooping it up before he can stop himself, bringing it with a disturbing quickness to his nose and mouth, trying to _breathe_ for the first time in what might be years. Oh god, he’s been searching for so long, and suddenly there it is, beneath the smoke: that sameness. Poe takes another breath. He feels as if his heart is going to leap from his ribs, as if he wants to laugh with the sheer, hysterical realization that Kylo might have left but his scent, his warmth, is still on this jacket and _this is it._ Poe Dameron is officially too far gone.

His knees want to buckle but he reaches into his pocket with his free hand, instead, and thumbs open Facebook. Starts a message. Maybe something else, too:

 

_hey man you forgot your_


End file.
